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ASHEVILLE - Black Star Line's beer is the mission of the brewery made manifest in a glass. It stirs awareness of a life made to suit one group. It helps facilitate a conversation about stereotypes.

Can a beer really do all that?

L.A. McCrae thinks so. McCrae's new Black Star Line, Western North Carolina's first black-owned brewery, is coming together at the former site of Basic Brewing in Hendersonville.

There, the Black Star Line team is rooting a core menu in sweet beers brewed with botanicals, with names that pay homage to activists. The beer menu riffs off indigenous African styles in an almost defiant rejection of bitter and hoppy trends.

"We're going back to African origins, right?" said McCrae.

The original brewers were African, McCrae explained, and they made beer with an abundance of honey and botanicals for a people who tended to favor sweeter things. "We're going back to what our people, what people with melanin, like."

Black Star Line notes on its website that the beer industry and brewery owners "are unsurprisingly and almost exclusively all white and mostly male owned and centered.

"Our brewery is a chance to change that narrative and create space for women, people of color, queer folks, and other folks with marginalized social identities. It is the spot that is truly for us and by us."

The brewery's flagship brews include Oshun's Nectar Cream Ale, with sweet flavors of honey and orange. It's named after an African deity regarded as a healer, water protector, and bringer of love. The Lorde Honey Pilsner is named after civil rights activist and poet Audre Lorde.

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Black Star Line, Western North Carolina's first black- and queer-owned brewery, is coming together at the former site of Basic Brewing in Hendersonville, where the ethic makeup is predominantly white.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-times.com)

"Go to any black and brown place and we're definitely going to have sweet tea on the menu. We're going to have some Kool-Aid, we're going to have lemonade, all that stuff. What resonates with us is really going to be the sweeter things."

Even the Coca-Cola in Ghana is far sweeter than what's found in the United States, McCrae said. But the most widely available craft beer tends to hew bitter.

"This is where white privilege comes into play, because white folks never even have to think about anything other than their experience, which has become the norm," McCrae said.

"We're not neglecting the people who are accustomed to the bitterness," said apprentice brewer and operations manager Javier Naranjo, who added that the brewery's pale ale is more typical of something you might find in a mainstream bar. "We're not ignoring that side, but we'd like to expose that there's a different side to things."

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L.A. McCrae pours grain into a brew kettle as Javier Naranjo stirs October 23, 2017 at Black Star Line Brewing Company in Hendersonville.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-times.com)

A space all their own

It's been a long year for McCrae. The objective was to open in Asheville, but the battle to find a space and funding nearly had the whole operation decamp to Virginia.

Meanwhile, the team brewed batches at Sanctuary Brewing Company in Hendersonville, launching crowd-funding campaigns to scrape up extra capital for a brick-and-mortar space all their own.

They eventually secured a $50,000 loan from Mountain Bizworks, which has since been exhausted, with no other loans currently on the table. "Everybody wants equity," McCrae said.

McCrae has bad credit in part due to medical debt, which added an extra layer of complexity to the task of opening a brewery. Lack of funding is preventing further growth beyond a two-barrel system.

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Kay Mague pours grain into a mill with help from Tina Marshall at Black Star Line Brewing Company October 23, 2017.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-times.com)

McCrae hopes to use Black Star Line as a way to nurture black entrepreneurship through microfunding.

"That way, we're all helping each other to raise up in the industry and create space for us," McCrae said.

The name of the brewery nods to financial independence, referencing the shipping line founded by Marcus Garvey. Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, intended the business as a vehicle for both the Back to Africa Movement and black entrepreneurship.

Further, McCrae also plans to pay staff at least $15 per hour and wants to hire for community-outreach positions.

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L.A. McCrae of Black Star Line Brewing Company October 23, 2017.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-times.com)

'De-centralizing whiteness'

McCrae has a history as an "urban street guerrilla minister" with a longer-than-average devotion to activism. In second-grade McCrae staged a sit-in to get equal pay for the custodian and the lunch lady, while demanding kids have input on the menu.

McCrae moved on to major in African studies and political science at the University of Tennessee, gaining a masters degree from Wesley Theological Seminary and a post-graduate certificate from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Now McCrae hopes to foster a space that feels safe for people with marginalized social identities without excluding more mainstream folks.

Or, in other words, a community space.

"I don't think there are many community spaces anywhere," said Tina Marshall, a member of the Black Star Line team most often found behind the bar. "Unless you're a member of a church — or you can go to your local coffee shop to organize — that's it."

Community spaces are endangered locally as property becomes more expensive, she added, and black community spaces, in particular, are few and far between.

McCrae said the lack of such space is connected to gentrification, which has fractured the black community. "When I think about this physical space, this has to be that for our people."

But McCrae noted holding a space for one racial group or sexual orientation does not preclude others from entering.

Just because the speakers blare Frankie Beverly and Maze or Stevie Wonder does not mean Fleet Foxes fans need not apply.

"Our biggest barrier has been, consistently, that a lot of folks are saying this is a brewery for black people, which is not true," McCrae said. "Just because we de-center whiteness does not make it exclusively black."

What's important is creating conversations that explore everything from the motive behind kneeling NFL players to the collection of historical, socio-political and poetry books behind the bar.

"The magic of what happens here is it's come-as-you-are, whomever you are, whichever beliefs you have, and let's connect with each other heart to heart and soul to soul," McCrae said.

McCrae recalled an hour-long conversation she had with a Trump voter that ranged from faith to love to politics.

"It didn't matter whether he voted for Trump. His face got red at times, and I got angry, and at the end of the day we could still say 'cheers,' and commit to being in each other's lives," McCrae said.

Black Star Line opens officially on Nov. 10 at 131 3rd Avenue West in Hendersonville. Check social media for more details.